I give you a new commandment: Love one another! Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.
Commentaries
13:31 - 13:38
Brotherly Love.
Love is, above all, a gift and revelation from Jesus Christ to his disciples, rather than a task and commandment (“I give you a commandment”). It belongs to him (this is “my” commandment). It is new not because of the time—the precept of brotherly love already existed in the Old Testament (Lv 19:17ff)—but because Jesus fills it with newness, because of its quality and characteristics: it is a love without measure, because he has loved us to the point of giving his life for us.
Commentaries
Brotherly Love.
Love is, above all, a gift and revelation from Jesus Christ to his disciples, rather than a task and commandment (“I give you a commandment”). It belongs to him (this is “my” commandment). It is new not because of the time—the precept of brotherly love already existed in the Old Testament (Lv 19:17ff)—but because Jesus fills it with newness, because of its quality and characteristics: it is a love without measure, because he has loved us to the point of giving his life for us.